Journey of being an Entrepreneur – Swapnil Pathak (Aromazeia)

More than a brand, it’s our love for nature in the form of Aromazeia. Our sole ambition is to spread this love all around the globe and bring people closer to mother earth.

Setting up a brand in a small town and trying to match it up with the international standard is a big challenge in itself. As far as brand image is concerned, package design is as crucial as its quality. In this competitive environment, we can’t ignore the role of product designing. It is really important to make sure that your product is attractive enough to draw customer’s attention towards your product in a crowded retail shop. Then comes the role of its performance & quality, which makes the customer come back to you and by it again. So as far as product styling was concerned, I decided to do it on my own. Be it package designing or the photo shoots.

Another challenge was our decision to establish its manufacturing unit in Uttarakhand for giving it a pollution free environment, which took a lot of time, hard work & patience.

Entrepreneurial journey

My father, Mr.Akhilesh Pathak, has a tremendous knowledge in the field of essential oils, attars & aromatherapy oils and my mother, Mrs.Neelam Pathak, is extremely proficient in gardening and very fond of plants. Hence, the inborn nature lover in me provoked that urge of bringing people back to nature and make such products available to them in the purest form possible.

We three are even very fond of hills, which lead to setting up the manufacturing unit in Uttaranchal, in the lap of Himalayas. But the growing popularity of the pain relief oil created by my father gave me that Eureka moment.

Almost 17 years back, he met with a serious accident and broke his shoulder that caused intolerable pain even after the plaster had been removed. After trying all kind of painkillers and solutions, he decided to make a pain relief oil on his own. He took a lot of pain and worked hard by trying mixtures of herbs in different proportion. His dexterity and superior domain knowledge finally resulted in him making a perfect blend of oils. The oil not only did miracles as pain relief to him but also, to our friends and relatives. The feedback was fantastic, and the oil was a runaway success in its own way. We had been distributing this product for free for a long time, and after getting positive reviews from the people using it, we chose it to be the flagship product of Aromazeia and decided to get into its mass production to make it accessible to people all over. Thus, started my new venture.

Well, I couldn’t find a better partner than my dad himself. We are a perfect team. He is a very practical man whereas I am just the opposite. I fantasize things a lot. But he has never stopped me from dreaming, and he has always kept his faith in me that somehow l manage to make my dreams come true. His practicality and my imagination, and then working together towards our goal are what makes us a perfect team.

He has been working in the field of manufacturing of essential oils & attars for 33 years now, and his knowledge of this domain is just commendable. It’s his innovation that we could come up with organic grade base attar, which is now making its presence worldwide. Our attar not just smells good, but has incredible health & beauty benefits. And then, his another creation, our magical “pain relief oil.” Apart from these, he has created many more beautiful fragrances & flavors.

Co-founder and CEO: Swapnil Pathak(28)

After finishing my engineering, I decided to come back and take my father’s business forward, but in my own style. Aromazeia is a platform where not only I got a chance to sharpen my business skills and getting closer to nature but also to live my love for designing & photography, which made me fall in love with my work even more. Hence, I am the one behind the package styling of all our products & all the product shoot we have done till now, including social media marketing.

We started in the year 2015, and our sale had been around 44 lakhs from 1st April 2015 till 31st of October 2016. There are many things that set Aromazeia apart from the competition. We belong to a family involved in the manufacturing of natural essential oils, aromatherapy oils, attars, hydrosols, flavors & fragrances since 1911, way before independence. Our experience is one of those things which makes us stand out in the crowd.

The oil blend we have used in our attar, as a base oil, is of organic grade and holds tremendous health and beauty benefits. Such qualities, in a bottle of attar, have never been introduced before, making it one of its kind & giving attar a whole new meaning.

Coming to Aromazeia pain relief oil, it is unique from the array of pain relieving oils flooding the market. Some of the ingredients used in it have never been used by anyone else before. And they are expensive too. While menthol is one of the common components in most of the pain relieving oils, we ain’t using it at all. Menthol works by temporarily relieving minor pain. Our pain relief oil is based on Ayurveda & Aromatherapy, and the result is surely not temporary. We have even worked on its odor to give it a pleasant smell and established our manufacturing unit in Uttarakhand, to give it a pollution free environment.

Aromazeia’s culinary herbs, herbal teas, preservative-free jams & fruit chutneys are also being processed and packed in the Himalayas at the height of 6000ft.

One of the biggest advantages you get when you are working with your dad, your don’t have to search for the investors outside. But it doesn’t mean I am allowed to spend as much money as I want to. I have always been given an economical budget and to manage everything in that.

Attars are obtained by hydrodistillation process (traditional deg bhapka process) which takes almost a month. This method is assumed to be almost 5000 years old, and there has been no change in the method since then. Reports suggest this is the same process which was used during the Indus Valley Civilization. Essential oils are being manufactured by steam distillation process. And hydrosols again by the hydro distillation process. Some of the aromatherapy oils are being manufactured by cold pressed method while the rest by steam distillation. Apart from being used as fragrances & flavors, these have a very important role in health & beauty related products and aromatherapy.

Aromazeia’s pain relief oil is obtained by blending natural essential oils & cold pressed oils, where some of the oils have never been used by anyone before. And all our herbal teas are being organically grown, processed and packed at the height of 6000ft in the Himalayas. Same is with our culinary herbs, preservative jams & quit chutneys.

Coming to our black orthodox tea, it is produced using traditional (or orthodox) methods of tea production, which involve plucking, withering, rolling, oxidation and drying. It is the finest grade tea, known as Super Fine Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe (SFTGFOP).

Since the day we began, our priority has always been the quality of the products and to deliver them to the buyers in the purest form. And this is what we are going to go ahead with.